Head of Data Science

Job Description

Join the team redefining how the world experiences design.

Hey, g'day, mabuhay, kia ora, 你好, hallo, vítejte!

Thanks for stopping by. We know job hunting can be a little time consuming and you're probably keen to find out what's on offer, so we'll get straight to the point.

Where and how you can work

Our flagship campus is in Sydney. We also have a campus in Melbourne and co-working spaces in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide. But you have choice in where and how you work. That means if you want to do your thing in the office (if you're near one), at home or a bit of both, it's up to you.

What you’d be doing in this role

You will partner with our business leaders along with colleagues in Product, Design, and Engineering to ensure that we have the right strategies, tools, processes, and ways of working to ensure we are leveraging our enormous amount of customer data effectively to achieve our goals.

You will focus on:

• Setting the strategic vision for Data Science and defining how data will support Canva’s commercial success and aligning data science with Canva’s broader strategic direction and providing valuable input into that direction.
• Connecting metrics across the business to ensure that we deeply understand what’s driving impact and progress towards our goals.
• Setting the team up for success with great tools that make data work efficient, scalable and enjoyable and working closely with Product Insights and Data Platform groups to improve our data capabilities.
• Partnering with leaders across Canva to evolve and shape the data science organisation so that it meets the needs of the business.
• Working closely with our Head of Growth to drive commercial impact and continue our tremendous growth story.
• Extending Canva’s experimentation culture and ensuring we can launch great new products with confidence.
• Ensuring we’re meeting our customer’s expectations around privacy, data security and online safety.
• Evolving and scaling Canva’s culture of data excellence.

You're probably a match if:

Leadership

• You have led a large data science team in a high growth tech company before.
• You have developed leaders at all levels, from fresh managers to those running teams in their own right.
• You are able to provide your team with a healthy mix of challenges and support that enables them to perform at their best.

Strategy

• You have proven experience in setting out and executing on a vision, strategy, and roadmap for data science, covering everything from tooling and processes to the strategic value of data.
• You have the ability to work across the business, not just within data science, but partnering with everyone from legal to operations to founders.
• You are able to constructively resolve problems involving complex groups of stakeholders with competing priorities.
• You have previous experience at a tech company and are familiar with the way tech companies operate and some of the concepts particular to our industry (e.g. growth accounting, product funnels, designing analytic events, etc.)
• You are a great communicator, with the ability to break down complex topics into simple solutions and ideas.
• You have a proven record of influencing the business with data and directly contributing to company goals.

Tech

• You have a history of using the fundamental technical skills of data science – hypothesis-driven problem solving, using SQL to wrangle data, numerical thinking, designing & forecasting goal metrics, uncovering strategic insights, and storytelling with data.
• You have an understanding of data warehousing, metrics and how to achieve performance and consistency at scale.
• You have experience working with an experimentation platform and a working understanding of the full suite of tools that data scientists depend on.
• You understand what non-data specialists need from data tooling and can advocate for their needs.
• You can demonstrate skills across optimising product funnels, running experiments, and building dashboards that effectively communicate results and outcomes.

About the team

At Canva, our mission is to empower the world to design, and we’re looking for a world-class Head of Data Science to help us make that happen.

After years of hypergrowth, our data science team now has just short of 200 amazing people who are embedded in the various business units in the company. They work closely with colleagues in Product, Design, and Engineering to ensure that we are getting the most from our data and building the best product possible.

The team is highly technical and has great commercial acumen. They run huge numbers of experiments, report on business success, forecast future impacts, and work on all sorts of propensity and other models that have direct impacts in the product. The team also covers the data needs of our People, Finance, and operational areas.

What's in it for you?

Achieving our crazy big goals motivates us to work hard - and we do - but you'll experience lots of moments of magic, connectivity and fun woven throughout life at Canva, too. We also offer a stack of benefits to set you up for every success in and outside of work.

Here's a taste of what's on offer:

• Equity packages - we want our success to be yours too
• Inclusive parental leave policy that supports all parents & carers
• An annual Vibe & Thrive allowance to support your wellbeing, social connection, office setup & more
• Flexible leave options that empower you to be a force for good, take time to recharge and supports you personally

Check out lifeatcanva.com for more info.

Other stuff to know

We make hiring decisions based on your experience, skills and passion, as well as how you can enhance Canva and our culture. When you apply, please tell us the pronouns you use and any reasonable adjustments you may need during the interview process.

Please note that interviews are conducted virtually.